I’m stunned. The organizers, artists, venues and viewers have all pulled together for another amazing ArtPrize. I am also stunned by the outcome of my last year’s worth of hard work. Surreal has been a popular word in my mouth lately. I still look at the mosaic and think that it’s all a dream. Taking pictures with ArtPrizers, signing autographs, front page press; all very cool, humbling and certainly surreal. I’m honored and humbled. So many people have helped me get to this point and they should also feel pride in helping something big happen. I wont start my acceptance speach (yet) but I will make sure to post the names of all those who’ve helped me complete my mosaic.

Here’s the video that Sam Klee has put together for me to use at the venue. visit his site at uthunkmedia.com.

“The 11th Hour” Sept 20th, 2010.

Holy Cow. My nerves are wrecked. It’s been an insane time getting all the little details pulled together at the last minute. I’m so scatter brained that I put my shirt on inside-out this morning and have been wearing it like that for a few hours now, at work.

The mosaic is finished. It took a little over 40 hours to complete. Tonight and tomorrow we will be transfering it into the frame that Wendel from First (Park) Congregational Church built over the weekend. I freaked out a little bit when I saw it. It is MASSIVE and beautifully built.

There are only a couple engineering concerns about how the mosaic will hold under it’s own weight but we have a couple trick up our sleeves if we need.

Over the weekend the PR for the project exploded. I was on the front page of the Grand Rapids Press, NPR made a mention, WXYZ in Detroit did an interview and a couple other local papers and radio stations are making mentions. Myself and Mia Klavon (greatest event coordinator ever) went to Ferndale Michigan were I was a featured artists at the Funky Ferndale Art Festival. We had an amazing time meeting everyone and spreading word about the project. We constantly had a crowd in front of the tent. It was a great beta test on how ArtPrize may go. The word-of-mouth was superb. Special shout out to Mark Loeb, event organizer, for having us out and treating us so good. Also Jeff Smith, our booth neighbor and also a talented ceramic artist who helped us get our act together. It was a great experience and Mia and I are completely exhausted.

Starting at 5:30pm this afternoon we will be moing the mosaic into the frame. It’s a manual process that will take some time and a lot of care. I’m planning on finishing tomorrow night. During the process we will be capturing a time-elapse video to share with you. Sam Klee will be heading that project. Man that kid is awesome. He gets the PixelPete seal of approval.

It’ll be ready, albeit by the skin my teeth, for ArtPrize on Wednesday. See you there.

“Feeling the Love” Aug 24th, 2010.

Howdy friends! So I’ve been home sick with some sort of flu for a couple days and have some time to catch up on my writing. I have a three exciting things to share. First off is a great article written by a very talented teen by the name of Sam Klee. Sam is an aspiring documentarian (new word?) that interviewed me down at the venue a couple of weeks ago. Sam is currently working on a documentary about ArtPrize and is interviewing artists participating in this year’s competition. The PixelPete team is very proud to have such an opportunity. We’re looking forward to contributing further to his film and offer him some candid behind-the-scene and in-the-head content. Here’s the link to the article Sam’s posted on his blog (Blog Article). Sam will be in attendance of our second news announcement…

A follow up interview with Fox17’s Tim Doty. You may remember that Tim did an initial interview in March where he discussed the benefits of using the Rubik’s Cube in the classroom and we visited with Matt Porter and his after school class that is already using them. We had a lot of fun and the interview went so well we landed a follow up that will film and be aired tomorrow, August 25th, 2010. We’ll be live at 6:15 and 6:40 and have another airing around 10:15ish. You can view the video clips on their website (http://www.fox17online.com/) after they have been aired. Tim is a lot of fun and makes interviewing a pleasure not a nerve-wracking endeavor like I initially thought.

Thirdly, We’ll be making a trip out to Ferndale, Michigan for their annual Funky Ferndale Art’s Fair. The project has been selected as one of their feature pieces and provide us a great opportunity to let people know about what we’re doing. Check out the write-up here (Funky Ferndale Art’s Fair).

“Cubes, Cubes, and more Cubes” Aug 21st, 2010.

The initail shipment of cube was delivered last week and I got to work immediatly on the mosaic. I’m glad to say that the process is going at at least twice the speed I originally intended. This takes an emmense pressure of me. The mosaic is now 40% complete and is looking amazing. It’s surreal to see it somewhere other than in my head and on a computer screen.

I’ll be getting the second and final shipment of cube in a week or so and fevorishly working to complete the mosaic, hopefull a full week ahead of schedule. At that point I can focus on building a sturdy frame to display the mosaic at the venue.

"Dream Big" forty percent complete

There were more posts but the posts above capture the spirit of my production blog pretty well.